Wednesday, January 04, 2012

Bumps in the Road

It's the beginning of the year, so of course I really wanted my first ROW80 check-in to be stellar.  At least it's happening.  Stellar?  Maybe next time.  It's moving along at least, even if it's slower than I thought it would be.


There's nothing really awful to report.  I just thought I'd have more done on my synopsis/outline by now, but I experienced some technical difficulties.  I realized I need to move my work from the journaling software I've been using to an actual writing program.  The journal software is wonderful; I love how easy it is to create categories and sub-categories and new sections.  However, it doesn't let me compile my work into a single document, and when it comes time for revisions that's going to be significant.

Last year I had tried out the Windows beta of Scrivener, and it has a lot of similarities to my journaling software so I decided to go ahead and use my NaNoWriMo winner reward and buy a copy.  And that's where the difficulties began.  I don't know if it's because I'm running it from my flash drive or because I never read the manual so I'm doing something wrong, but my registration wouldn't go through properly.  I decided to uninstall and start over, but the uninstall failed.  I had to go through my hard drive and flash drive and find ever last damned Scrivener file and delete them manually.  And there were several beta upgrades in there.  And each one of those created new files.  Ugh. 

It's done now, but I had thought I would have the synopsis of what I've written so far complete and moved over into Scrivener by today.  Still, I did know that all those files scattered around were a mess and needed to be cleaned up.  That's all set now, and I'm even going through the tutorial to make sure I am using the program to its full advantage, so this extra time it's taking to get started is probably going to be good for me in the long run. 

Now for the other stuff.  I have started a notebook for my house cleaning/organizing.  The list of mini areas still needs to be completed, but it has been started.  I've figured out what I'm going to do for exercise for the first few weeks to get myself back into the groove with that, but I haven't actually done anything yet.  I really need to make a dedicated space for my workout gear--clothes, weights, books and videos, etc.--so I don't have to go looking for things every time I want to exercise.  I am planning my recreational time for tonight--knitting while catching up on some TV shows with kitties and boyfriend.

My plan for now through Sunday: finish getting Scrivener and my synopsis/outline set up.  Not sure if I will finish the outline by then, but I will have it done by next Wednesday.  I will exercise at least twice between now and Sunday (yes, I could do more, but I'm trying to avoid that overwhelm thing).  I will finish the list of mini areas for house cleaning.  That's probably enough.  Slow and steady, right?  Right!

11 comments:

Marji Laine - Faith Driven Fiction said...

LOVE the turtle! I so feel like that sometimes! Especially when unexpected things happen to bog me down. Keep pushing!

Laura said...

I use Scrivener for Mac and love it. I hope you manage to get it sorted. Great goals too. Keep going. :) x

Jenny Hansen said...

Nothing like a little technical chaos to make you miserable. ROW80 lasts for 80 days so you've got some wiggle room to hit your stride. Keep truckin'...

Eden Mabee said...

Bumps in the road make the ride more exciting, but you are still going where you need to? :-D

I had some of those Scrivener Beta issues too. They seem ironed out now, but it was a pain. Glad to hear you're well on your way to enjoying it more fully. BTW, what journaling software did you use? Until NaNoWriMo 2009, I'd never ever heard of Scrivener before.

And it's cool you are running it on a flash drive. Hadn't known you could do that. Cool!

Anonymous said...

I didn't know you could run Scrivener off a flash either. I've just downloaded it, but it brought my system down to turtle speed, so I'm going to have to dump it and try something else - maybe the flash. Hopefully you take off from here!

Anonymous said...

That's my favorite writing software. Sorry to hear you've had so many issues with it. I hope the rest of the week goes a bit smoother!

Darlene Steelman McGarrity said...

What an awesome turtle! :) I hope you can work out the bugs with your writing software. I used the trial version of Scrivener. But as someone with zero to negative forty seven patience, I tossed it and used a notebook.

Glad I found your blog in the ROW80 Facebook group.

Anonymous said...

So good to see someone from Portland NaNo here! I came across your comment on my old writing pal's blog. It was a pleasure to meet you at the NaNo kickoff in the library.

Scrivener sounds fascinating: I should look into it. So far my technology is MS Word and an old-fashioned binder with notes.

Tia Bach said...

I hate setbacks like that, but at least it's done and you are moving forward now. Life loves to throw those things in!

Sounds like you are off and running. Looking forward to following your progress.

Live, Love, Laugh, Write! said...

Slow and Steady is right! Your moving forward even if it wasn't what you expected and that's good :) Have you tried the new install of Scrivener yet? I know I discovered that just registering from the Beta didn't work, but once I deleted the beta and installed the full version it registered just fine.

What are you knitting?

Kim Switzer said...

Ruthie, I am using the new install. I think it was fussing because, even though they give instructions for running Scrivener from a flash drive, it's really set up to run from a hard drive. I think it's all sorted now.

I am knitting a beginner's lace pattern scarf. Unless it keeps giving me fits, in which case I'm knitting a garter stitch scarf with gorgeous, self-striping yarn. :D

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